See you at Evolve BPM!

For some time now you've probably noticed our linking to a new sister blog titled Evolve BPM. Our new blog will still provide the latest industry updates regarding business process management and is the place to collaborate with seasoned members of organizations finding and delivering new business value by continually improving and optimizing processes. Since we've established this corresponding blog we want to officially invite you to join us and subscribe to our feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EvolveBPM

As you've already seen, we've been building up the Evolve BPM blog with the same quality content that you find here. Beginning today, this will be our last post on this blog but you can join us on the Evolve BPM blog, where we hope you'll continue to actively participate as you have here. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at Evolve BPM.

NHL’s Vancouver Canucks implement BPM

The Vancouver Canucks are implementing a unified communication system to boost business process management within it’s Vancouver Arena, GM Place. This three year project will implement Nortel Networks Corp’s VC product suite. This software will allow voice, data and wireless communications to function together to improve the business process throughout the arena. IT World Canada covers the story here. The management is expecting this software to improve internal communications and even beyond that. Concession stands are hoping that the new software will help them to, by monitoring the amount of food in stock at individual stands. Security is also expected to be affected, as they can direct security guards in real time to where they’re needed most.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Intalio Releases Latest version of Intalio BPMS

As reported here, Intalio released version 5.2 of Intalio BPMS. The biggest benefit is the real-time process monitoring that has been added to the capabilities. Titled Business Activity Monitoring, this allows companies to define Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and sets alerts for business process activity. The dashboard shows both charts and graphs, and reports created can be exported into PDF format. CEO and founder Ismael Ghalimi also mentioned that:

Interoperability is another cornerstone of the release. Intalio BPMS is now certified to work with a broader combination of application servers, databases, hardware and operating system

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Anacomp's CaseLogistix is Named Trend-Setting Product of 2008

MarketWatch reports that Anacomp’s business process solution CaseLogistix has been named Trend-Setting Product of 2008 by KMWorld.

CaseLogistix allows legal teams to organize, review, and analyze digital evidence. CaseLogistix was noted for its value, functionality, and ability to streamline different business processes. Wayne Ford, Anacomp's Senior Vice President of Marketing mentions:

"We are honored to have CaseLogistix recognized as an innovative and trend-setting product. Our inclusion on this list exemplifies our position in the litigation support and content management realms as both a pioneer and a leader."

What are some applications that your company is using to ease business processes? Is the application your company using buzz worthy, or is it time to look for another vendor?

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How to start your process management

In a recent article at TV Technology, they talk about approaching business process one step at a time. Business process management is all about aligning your business goals with technology. When the technology changes, its important to see that your processes shift, too. With this software integration of your business to technology, it’s important to see that you’re continually improving and developing your business processes. It’s also important to realize that your technology falls in line with the way your business and people work.

Some of the greatest results that come out of aligning technology with current processes are the agility that comes into your organization and how communication is increased as a result of the formalized processes.

The article also gives a great starting point to adapt process management, document your current processes (colons are used for lists, so you just need a comma instead. Once you’ve done this, you can see which process would benefit the most from turning it into a business process.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Savvion Planning Customized BPM Solutions for India

As announced in this article from CXOtoday, Ma Ketabchi, CEO of Savvion mentioned that Savvion is “planning a hot of customized BPM solutions”. The specific sectors they are targeting include healthcare, retail, and BFSI. In addition, the company will launch the Savvion Business Solutions Alliance Program. As Ketabchi stated:

‘The core objective of the program is to aid in developing more and more business applications for enterprises. Companies such as Oracle and SAP develop business applications that only have broad applicability, but companies need much more than that.”

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Managing Your Business

This afternoon I came across this post ‘Manage Your Business in 4 Easy Steps’ from Jeremiah Whitehead on GK Business. He details four steps business should take in order to ensure that their business will not fail. Here’s a brief recap of what he proposes.

1. People – Your company’s first concern should be to keep employees happy. By creating an environment where people know exactly what to do, you will ensure that the quality of the product/service does not suffer.
2. Applications - Using good business process management software can provide structure, control, and an easier way for people to manage conflicts. Applications that employers use on a daily basis can be controlled and monitored through BPM software.
3. Databases – Databases can wreak havoc within the organization. Make sure that your BPM software allows for the programmability in multiple languages to avoid this problem.
4. Quality Control – With solid tools and BPM software in your company you can rest assured that the quality of work will be high.

What steps has your business taken to create a more efficient and effective workplace?

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Kaiser Permanente adopts new BPM software

According to The Call Center Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, a healthcare company, has adopted Pegasystem Customer Process Manager for Health Care. They’ve adopted this system in order to: optimize customer experience, drive higher first call resolution rates, and lower call handling times. The CPM HC is built specifically for health care organizations and will help Kaiser Permanente by giving them software that includes: multi-channel, intent-driven customer service to increase productivity, loyalty and growth.

Alan Trefler, the CEO of Pegasystems had this to say:

"We are delighted that Kaiser Permanente has selected Pegasystems to support their contact centers. Kaiser Permanente is well respected for its high customer service rankings and the deployment of BPM technology will allow them to reach even higher standards of excellence for customer care and quality of service."

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Toyota Motor Europe Selects Active Endpoints

Toyota motor announced, as reported in this article from market watch, that they have been able to successfully use ActiveVOS. According to the article

An application orchestrated by ActiveVOS enables users to more readily access Toyota's sales education curriculum, guaranteeing that the education is widely used within the company and that each student's progress is tracked.

In response to the news, Eric Egertson, VP of Sales for Active Endpoints stated:

“We are pleased that Toyota Motor Europe selected Active Endpoints to develop their SOA applications. Modernizing important systems like learning management to take advantage of ActiveVOS's business process management (BPM) and workflow capabilities delivers immediate return on investment."

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Microsoft: Does it own the BPM space?

BPM means different thing to everyone in the corporate world. This post on The Register discusses that whether you view BPM as Business Performance Monitoring, Business Process Modeling or Business Process Management Microsoft seems to be leading vendors in supplying users with workflow solutions, middleware, analytics, and much more.

It will be interesting to see how some of Microsoft’s competitors like IBM, Oracle, and Lombardi will position its BPM Suites to combat Microsoft’s majority share of this area. What are your thoughts on Microsoft and BPM?

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Haldiram looks to Infogain Corporation for BPM

According to Moneycontrol, Haldiram, a manufacturer of famous Indian snacks, has turned to Infogain to help align their retail manufacturing needs. Infogain will help develop and implement a dispatch management solution to streamline its business processes across it’s global network of manufacturing units. Infogain is known for its expertise in retail business process management.

Pramod Kapoor, Infogain’s retail delivery services head, had this to say about the deal:

“Infogain has extensive experience in planning and executing implementations that optimize our client’s business processes. We aim to provide a reliable and futuristic automation solution to Haldiram that will redefine its dispatch management practices to bring in more productivity and business efficiency. Infogain’s technology framework, tools and best practices will ensure minimum risk and high operational competence for Haldiram’s business. Infogain will follow a planned approach and methodology to execute and deliver the solution in the most timely and cost-effective manner.”

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Positives of BPM

This post from big think, eloquently explains the many benefits of business process management. As the post states, Gartner has forecasted the BPM will continue to rise, and investment in these practices will have a correlating trajectory. Below is a summary of the “advantages of BPM”:

1. Save time and money
2. Improve quality of work
3. Curing business processes
4. Realization of process automation
5. Implementation team
6. Optimization Process
7. Knowledge based enterprises to change

This list highlights some of the positives of BPM but what are other benefits that your organization has seen after utilizing these type of processes?

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

HCL Automates BPM for the State of Nebraska

MarketWatch reports that The State of Nebraska’s Worker’s Compensation Court has awarded HCL America Inc. a contract to create a Business Process Management application and framework.

The court has invested much time in trying to become a ‘paperless’ court, but in its efforts has had a tough time tracking and reporting data on events as workers compensation filings pass for approvals. BPM tools can automate this process and make a paperless environment work. The objectives of NWCC is to streamline workers compensation processes while separating process management rules and controls from structured data interaction.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Pitny’s Delicious Foods looks to BPM for efficiency

Business process management can increase the speed and efficiency of data running through a company. IT Business of Canada has the report here. Pitney’s Delicious Foods, of Burlington, Ontario, is looking to increase exactly those things while reducing the number of errors in their data keeping by adapting BPM. This fresh and frozen chicken product company is looking for their “Golden Egg” by investing in new BPM software but installing using products within SAP and Business Objects. Their aim is to help the migration of reporting processes from excel sheets to a fully automated process. With their current software, it takes five days to produce sales and financial reports. Within these reports, there tends to be errors due to the manual work required with an Excel sheet.

With this new software, they hope to automate this process which will lead to better control of their inventory, and in turn leave them with better warehouse stock numbers and provide them with more accurate restocking schedules.

The next step in their process to implementing BPM is to install the software, a seven week process. This new software will show the benefits of an automated process from the front lines of the factory to upper level management, as they will now have better control over their inventory numbers.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

E-mails Role in Business Process Management

This article discusses how e-mail, instead of being simply a supplement to BPM, has morphed into a tool that is increasingly taking up more and more of an employees time. The author, Ramon Padilla, quotes Ross Mayfield, President of Socialtext,

“(Employees) spend most of their time handling exceptions to business processes. That’s what they are doing in their inbox for four hours a day. E-mail has become the great exception handler.”

Padilla further expands by discussing reasons as to why e-mail has become time consuming in organizations:

1. [We are] Making it up as we go along
2. Not enforcing business process
3. Business processes that are not automated or automated with software that is outdated or doesn’t fulfill the user’s needs
4. Lack of communications within an application or integration with other communication mechanisms
5. Lack of communication alternatives besides e-mail

These points raise questions regarding organizations use of BPM. If e-mail is taking up much of an employees time as a way to deal with exception in BPM, does this mean that the company does not have effective business processes in place? Do you agree with the author’s points? Is there anything you would add or detract from the list above?

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Iontas Helps Solve BPM Issues

According to this article on Market Watch, Iontas has added a function in their Focus software suite which will capture every step that people take to conduct business tasks, without interrupting their work or requiring integration. The application will graphically map out how processes are being followed, which will be a huge help for managers in order to determine where and how to focus resources for process improvement.

This software will end guessing games about how people use information technology. With focus, managers can look forward to improving efficiency and reducing operational costs. Iontas CEO Joe Stockton mentions:

"Every manager at every company needs to understand their processes before they can optimize them.”

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Community College moves to BPM

In a recent article by Fox Business, they reported that Edmonds Community College, in Washington state, is transforming to a BPM system to manage their processes. They believe that by automating the business process, they will improve the efficiency of the administration and improve employee activity

The new system they’ve adopted, Liquid Office, will help create, deploy, route, approve and manage many digital documents a year. The current system for management of documents is primarily done with paper.

Here is what Victor Portolese, manager, Application Development Services at Edmonds Community College, had to say about their transition:

"Previously, all of our administrative information was managed using paper-based processes that were labor intensive and prone to error. We required a solution that would reduce the time and costs associated with the management of forms while also integrating easily with our existing system framework. The LiquidOffice solution provides us with out-of-the-box robust capabilities that can be rapidly tailored and deployed by our staff with little to no programming. With Autonomy Cardiff, we will be able to automate and streamline our HR-related business processes that have historically been paper based, helping to decrease the time it takes to process our digital forms, while increasing our employees' productivity.”

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

BPM and SOA

This latest post on SOA Evolution details the evolution of business process management from the 1980’s all the way to today’s day and age. In the 1980s BPM consisted of jotting down processes on pen and paper, getting a team of programmers to build it, and then implementing it usually on one huge computer. In the 1990s BPM changed to a more organizational approach. Systems included process diagrams, IT and business change. It is easier to make sense of business process management than SOA, and this is why businesses are hesitant to embrace SOA. IT departments are aware that SOA is needed in order to make SOA work, and this is how BPM will eventually “save” SOA.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Business Processes and Management

Adopting a business process approach to management can sometimes be difficult to navigate. This article from BPMenterprise.com offers a useful guide on the appropriate steps needed. First as they say, the two questions that are asked about this process are

“Who are your customers/stakeholders, and what are the benefits that your organization offers them?”

After determining the answer to that question, the following outline can be applied in order to implement a business process approach to management.

1. Determine the value chains that deliver these benefits
2. Decompose the process and determine the process boundries
3. Select appropriate metrics based on critical success factors for the identified processes and overall strategy
4. Appoint process owners for each core process
5. Begin a never ending cycle of business process improvement

Is there anything that you would change in this outline, or is this a process that you would follow?

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

BPM Project Guide

Below is a very straightforward slide show from slideshare that iterates “10 tips for a great Business Process Management Project. There are many great points, and while some may seem obvious, they help serve as a reminder and is a nice reiteration. Below is a summary of the 10 tips.

1. Pick a project that will make a difference
2. Obtain Senior Management Buy-In
3. Get the team structure right
4. Plan for the real world
5. Avoid ‘paralysis by analysis’
6. Use an iterative delivery approach
7. Control expectations and scope
8. Plan for interfaces, integration and reports
9. Measure what’s been achieved
10. Evangelize your success

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Here is a copy of the slideshare presentation.

10 Tips For A Great Business Process Management project

view presentation

Top 10 Open Source Rules Engines

This recent post on the Business Review Online blog discusses how even though business process management systems have managed to become mainstream, business rules companies have remained a very niche area. Business Rules Companies are extremely important because they enable companies to reduce their reliance on hard-coded application logic. But with so many choices in open source rules engines, how do you know which one is best for your company? Here’s a list of top 10 best open source rules engines provided by Business Review Online. Enjoy!

1. Drools

2. Hammurapi Rules

3. JEOPS

4. JRuleEngine

5a. Mandarax

5b. Take

6. Open Lexicon

7. Prova

8. SweetRules

9. TermWare

10. Zilonis

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

The challenge of implementing BPM

In a recent article at BP Trends, Frits Bussemaker takes a moment to look at some of the thought processes that maybe holding back the full and successful implementation of BPM. He begins the article by pointing out that BPM is very much a change management discipline.

He continues by making observations that could potentially be road blocks in your implementation to BPM. First, he observes that for the most part, the word process has a negative connotation, and those outside the BPM world see it that way. They associate BPM with a long process and unnecessary actions.

A second issue he observed was that many business managers have no desire to streamline an organization, even if they understand what BPM can do. They often see it as a threat to what they’re doing and how many people they’re managing.

Bussemaker concludes the article by stating that organizations currently transitioning into centralized process organization, they need to “Think Ahead, Stay Small!”. He goes ahead to state that staying small is not about size, the but mentality to which organizing business processes is handled. A company must staying flexible or agile, recognizing the need to connect and collaborate, staying focused on the core business, staying lean and mean, and being personal and intimate.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

IBM Proposed Acquisition of ILOG

IBM and ILOG have signed an agreement today, whereby IBM will acquire ILOG for approximately EUR 215 million or $340 million in U.S. currency. The goal of this acquisition is for IBM to advance their BPM and SOA technologies with ILOGs Business Rules Management Systems software which will:

“enable IBM to help clients deliver critical business information in real-time, allowing them to make better business decisions faster.”

As also mentioned in this article from Fox Businesses:

“When completed, the acquisition of ILOG will strengthen IBM's BPM and SOA position by providing customers a full set of rule management tools for complete information and application lifecycle management across a comprehensive platform including IBM's leading WebSphere application development and management platform.”

This acquisition still has some hurdles to navigate since there are several prerequisites pending. The public tender offers still have to be reviewed to determine if they violate U.S. or EU antitrust laws, and are also contingent on a 66.67% share capital and voting rights minimum. In France, the offer is awaiting approval from the AMF and French Ministry of Economy.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

IBM Launches New Financial Management Business Process Tool

CNNMoney.com reports that IBM has released an analytical financial tool that will allows companies to better analyze and manage the performance of a company’s financial function.

This tool will help to solve the problem area of accurately identifying where redundancies occur within the finance organization. A 2008 IBM Global CFO Study shows that 1/3 of CFOs stated that they are ineffective at effectively measuring business performance.

William Fuessler, Global Financial Management Leader, IBM Global Business Services mentions:

"CFOs need quick access to the truth, they need process and data commonality through enterprise standards to achieve higher levels of efficacy. The delay in understanding the true state of the business can mean the difference between profitability and lost growth potential. The Finance Transformation Workbench tool is yet another example of IBM's high-value services proposition which automates labor-based process and uses our Intellectual Property (IP) to create repeatable software-like assets."

IBM’s tool is fully customizable to an organization’s needs, since it provides an integrated view of various business models which include: Finance Function component business models, business process Taxonomies, (such as the American Productivity and Quality Council Process Classification Framework) and organization structure maps.

Also, we're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Reliance Capital Adopts BPM

In recent news, detailed here at CXO Today, we find out that Reliance Capital will implement BPM across their enterprise, spanning all their divisions including mutual fund, life insurance, general insurance, Reliance Money, and consumer finance. They will use Business Manager 7.0 to implement this new company wide business initiative. Also included in their new pursuit of BPM will be their BPM Center of Excellence, which will find a way to identify and rank importance projects into solutions across the businesses subsidiaries.

Also, we're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

Novak Provides $10 Million in Funding for Appian

Appian, a global provider of BPM, announced that they are receiving $10 million in funding from Novak Biddle Venture Partners as announced in their press release. Jack Biddle, partner at Novak and an Appian board member, had this to say:

"With analysts predicting a significant growth pattern for the industry over the next several years, Appian is well positioned to emerge as the leading pure play BPM provider. Their ability to bootstrap the business to this point is a strong indication that Appian's product offering and market strategy - implemented by an experienced management team - are meeting organizations' complex and diverse needs."

Industry insiders, as pointed out in this blog post are excited by this news. The feeling is that this will help increase the use of the SaaS model since according to company executives, Appian is increasingly becoming more “SaaS-oriented”. As the post mentions:

Appian is one of very few BPMS leaders actively pursuing the SaaS model, and they believe they are ahead of competitors in both the “vision” and the technology.

Also, we're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Business Process Management, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolvebpm.blogspot.com/

PML Methodology in SAP

Vanessa Huschke recently talked to Marcus Dorfmeyer, the Project manager of Knowledge Management Competency Center (KMCC) organization about Process Management Lifecycle and detailed the interview here at the SAP Community Network. Here’s a quick recap of definitions for PML that the SAP Community Network provides if you need a quick refresher.

In this interview, Marcus discusses the benefits of PML methodology, how it helps accomplish his project, and some of its uses in SAP. Be sure to read the interview over, as I’m sure it’ll provide some valuable insight for your organization’s business process management system.

Austin Energy Uses BPM to Improve Services

At Austin Energy, they were having problems achieving a level of service where they could attend properly to all of their service calls filtering in. Intelligent Enterprise took a look at their story here. So, with no BMP suite, they made improvements to their service oriented architecture company-wide in order to improve services. They started out by defining what the requirements of the software had to be and the benefits they wished to receive from the software.

Since they were unable to efficiently answer all phone calls, they streamlined the five different tools they used while communicating with customers over the phone. This alone provided a huge drop in the average call time. Customer service went from servicing 4,000 calls a day to 20,000 calls a day.

Software AG Report

Software Ag, published a report on Best Practices for SOA Governance User Survey. The reason for creating a report was to determine which ways organizations are approaching the process of implementing SOA governance. The study is especially relevant with SOA beginning to have an increased role in BPM. Some of the findings that were revealed in the report include:

- Interest in SOA was widespread as only one industry out of 14 reported that more than 15% of its respondents had “no plans to adopt SOA”.

- Top drivers for SOA adoption were a desire to improve business agility, simplify integration, and support business process management (BPM) initiatives.

- SOA has yet to expand far beyond the firewall as only a small minority (19.5%) report having exposed more than a quarter of their existing services externally.

- There was a strong correlation between SOA maturity and governance adoption with more than 80% of enterprises having a fully-implemented SOA in place calling their governance practices “mature” or “adequate” versus 33% overall.

While these findings are formulated across several large enterprises, what is your opinion on SOA governance in you respective organization?

BPM Vendors Use of Internal Products

Appian, recently posted a report regarding some of their cost savings techniques. Specifically they mentioned that they estimate a cost savings of $500,000 a year attributed to use of their own products by eliminating licensing and support costs. Also mentioned is how by using their own products they feel they are able to provide better service to clients by discovering new uses for their products. As stated in the report:

Many other of our BPM applications are cross-functional, demonstrating the new possibilities our technology offers. For example

- Our Human Resources department uses Appian to manage many of their day-to-day administrative responsibilities and process integrations with other departments, such as handling departmental transfers, promotions and reassignments. Our Recruiting team uses Appian for managing the complete lifecycle of recruiting from prospect intake through interview through offer. Appropriate handoffs are then automatically made to HR, where Appian makes on-boarding fast and easy by providing all benefits and employee handbook information in the context of their associated processes, with status-tracking.

While some may feel that it is obvious that BPM vendors should use their own products, this blog post on Column 2 poses an interesting question to BPM vendors by asking them to release reports on use of their own company’s internal products. What is your opinion on the subject of BPM vendors maximizing use of the products they offer?

Building BPM Success: How to Manage the BPM Lifecycle

As part of this blog, we bring you up-to-date information on the latest trends and processes of BPM. In the past we’ve hosted several webinars on BPM management, and this is where we will be posting any future webinars. In case you didn’t get a chance to view Building BPM Success: How to Manage the BPM Lifecycle, here’s your chance to view it for free!

This webinar was presented by John Rymer, Principal analyst at Forrester, and Malcolm Ross, Director of Product Management at Appian Corporation. This webinar session will taught clients on proper techniques in evaluating their current process ecosystem and selecting the right processes for an initial BPM project. John and Malcolm also reviewed organizational changes and best practice methodologies for process improvement.

I’m sure you will find this session very informative. Click here to view it.

Business Process Outsourcing

Recently, we looked at what the important factors are when choosing to outsource business processes.

To further expand on the topic, I thought I would share this video with you. Here, UHY discusses outsourcing parts of the business process management process. They discuss why it is important to know your current business process and then take those and use outsourcing in a why that it can benefit your company. Another way is to find a process that is not essential to the finished version of the product, such as those performed in the accounting department.

Is BPM Automation Possible?

On Saturday Avinash Malik, an enterprise architect from Microsoft, wrote an article explaining his view on automated BPM, and how despite the “hype”, it can never be truly automated. His theory states that about 15 to 20 years ago, organizations started developing BPM, and working this new concept into their budgets. This led IT developers to develop unique languages, namely BPMN or BPEL, in order to create software His opinion is that people think that with these developments it would be possible to save costs and not keep any IT developers on staff. The problem with this thinking, as he states in the article is that,

“We can automate a small number of situations where coherent activities, in sequence, are performed entirely by computer. Certainly, we want these situations to increase. But the overall impact on the cost and quality of IT-developed software is minimal. And if we are not addressing the cost and quality of IT software... why even discuss BPM automation?”

Other experts have already added their opinions to the fray as can be seen by this post from Bruce Silver, who has a different opinion. Another post that discussed Malik’s opinion can be found here. What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of BPM automation?

Hyland Software acquires Liberty Information Management Systems

Announced Monday, Hyland Software has attained Liberty Information Systems. The transaction was private. Hyland Software is a fast growing independent software vendor, and specializes in enterprise content management. Hyland Software’s current product, OneBase® Enterprise Content Management, is known as a standout product for meeting the transactional content management needs of both small and large enterprises by industry analysts.

Steve Lehrer, formerly Chief Solutions Officer at Liberty IMS, had this to say about the transaction:

Liberty IMS and Hyland Software share the same values. Both companies have remained focused on developing solutions driven by customer requirements and not industry hype. Bringing our two companies together will provide our customers and partners with an even broader set of capabilities with which to drive down costs and decrease inefficiencies while improving their business processes.

Source: Street Insider

Enterprise Information Management

In a recent blog post by Billy Cripe at Oracle, he discusses the importance of harnessing all the information that has the potential to get lost in the organization. In the future, Cripe states, it will be vital businesses to adopt an effective form content management.

Cripe believes that the wealth and importance of information often falls through the cracks, and information management will be the way to capture and use that data in the best possible way. With the ocean of information, humans swimming through often miss many of the important items because they note what they think is relevant to them.

It will be important for companies now, to be able to use an enterprise information management system that has the ability to capture all of these key tools: programmatic indexing, entity extraction, topical mapping, social inputs, sentiment and semantic awareness. Utilizing these tools will propel companies with their knowledge of information to the next level of business tools.

Mexican Telecommunications provider centers processes around BPM

At BEA, they give a great example of how BPM can power a business from the inside out. Tkonecta, a relatively new telecommunications provider in Mexico, set out with a goal to keep their staffing low while obtaining 15,000 new customers monthly with a guratnee of servicing them each within five days.

Tkonecta used BEA AquaLogic Business Process Management to center their efforts so all teams could communicate and provide service quickly to customers. By using the BPM features, they were able to automate and optimize high volume processes, down costs and improve the customer experience.

They used the services available to design the perfect BPM process for the situations they needed. The BPM was used to drive the processes, and since the program was being built from scratch, they could find the kinks before they became problems. They built programs that stream lined sales, operations and inventory, engineering, finance and customer service. They are also able to pull reports on their progress weekly.

The result in Tkonecta centering their business around BPM was meeting their service goals: service in less than five days and 15,000 customers a month with fewer than 500 people working for the company.

Green Hat and 1st Thought to Offer New Product

Green Hat in conjunction with 1^st Thought, a UK based firm, is offering a new automation product that is a testing platform for SOA and BPM. According to the news article found in Integration Developer News, the two companies are making it available only for TIBCO’s iProcess. Peter Cole, Green Hat President and CTO, made this statement regarding this product launch:

“Some of the world’s largest organizations are using BPM in conjunction with SOA to deliver maximum business value. Until recently, automation of BPM testing has always been a stumbling block,”

Nigel Winship, CEO of 1^st Thought, also had this to say:

“The ability that GH Tester now provides to drive the testing of a process end to end is genuinely ground breaking and we believe affords huge scope to drive down delivery costs for BPM projects.”

BPM Processes Not Always the best for Knowledge Workers

Most business process management tools are used in situations where a process occurs repeatedly over a long time. In a recent article written by Keith Harrison-Broninski at BP Trends, he takes time to look at how business processes need to cater to knowledge workers and their not-repeatable processes.

He begins the article by stating three problems currently shaping a new face in collaborative knowledge work:

1. Market globalization is forcing commercial companies to “compete smarter.”
2. Reduction in labor demand is forcing knowledge workers to “work smarter.”
3. Worldwide recession is forcing organizations to “cut costs smarter.”

Knowledge work is harder to adapt to a business process than many things. It can’t be planned in the future. Harrison-Broninski points out that it’s easier to adapt business process software with human centric processes more so than human-driven processes. So there is a drive to adapt software to the needs of the knowledge worker.

The factors listed above are responsible in pushing software to become better for a BPM software for human processes. With companies having to streamline the process because of the recession and therefore fewer workers, it’s crucial that software is adapted to aid their processes. This software must help with collaborative, adaptive and innovative software. These three things can only be addressed after it’s been determined by the knowledge workers what their responsibilities, goals, and commitments are.

Before the software can be effective, Harrison-Broninski has addressed the process for the flow of knowledge before it gets put into the system. His theory is called HIM (Human Interaction Management). The steps are: research, evaluate, analyze, constrain and task. With research, it’s critical to talk to those who know the information first hand, and turn it into personal knowledge. While in the evaluation stage, it is important to step back and review what you’ve learned. Know the information you’ve learned in and out. During the analyze process, it’s important to decide how to approach the problem. While in the constrain phase, separate the work in to intervals, and decide what order they need to be completed. And the final phase, task, involves disturbing the work.

KPN Chooses the Cordys BPM Suite

According to this news release on Realwire, a leader in telecommunications, KPN, has chosen to link Cordys Business Process Management Suite to help process online customer requests. The Cordys suite will be the link between activating and invoicing new services like internet, telecom, and multimedia which was released in the beginning of 2008.

The business process platform will enable KPN to cater to customer’s need faster and more effectively, now that customers can order services online. Reduction of costs is an added bonus to this automated system that KPN will put into place.

Jan Muchez, CIO of KPN mentions:

“Because of the intense time pressure we faced we were looking for a supplier who could not only provide a flexible application, but also has extensive knowledge of the subject matter so as to contribute to this strategic project.”

Colosa Joins Red Hat Exchange

According to this article at TMC Net, Colosa has joined the Red Hat Exchange, the open source software and partner network.

Adding to the Red Hat Exchange, Colossa will contribute its expertise in helping to automate workflow and improving business processes. Its software, Process Maker, is already used by some government entities. This software specializes in automating intensive document processes that require approval. Some work areas appropriate for this type of software are finance, HR and operations. This system is web based, so it allows multiple worksites and is able to share workflow.

The Challenges of Being in the Middle

In a recent article at EWeek, Pedro Pereira takes a look at the challenges that solutions providers face due to being in the middle of the information flow process, many providing the business process management software we use today. As a result of the constantly changing business aspect, these providers have become business solutions providers. It’s their responsibility to align the business with technology, which as proven not to be easy.

When developing their products, not only do they have to fulfill the needs of the customer, but they also have to work with the vendors and distributors who put their products out in the market. The distributors are trying to sell the product, so they’re constantly vying for attention. The end user is using the products at home and as a result they bring their new expectations of the software at work.

But as the article points out, since the solutions providers are in the middle of the chain, they have the opportunity to see to both ends of the chain, making it easier to provide solutions to both ends.

Business Processes Change

In the shifting economy affecting the state of today’s state of business, many companies are finding ways to effectively reduce costs. In this article by Rajan Chandras, he discusses how many companies are currently neglecting the state of their business processes in order to focus on saving money. Companies know that they can’t pass the rising costs along to their customers, because their customers are also feeling squeezed from other places.

Chandras points out that by looking away from purchasing business process software that will increase the fluidity of their business in the future, companies are losing money. If companies took time to analyze their business process, they would in effect find ways to improve their current processes. Business process software can improve this, so why are so many companies hesitant to find the right business process software for them?

Is Business Process Outsourcing the way for your company?

More and more these days, business process outsourcing is becoming an important process of the business process management function. Some of the most common items: human resource management, document and data management, and customer relationship management. Americans have been seen to navigate towards companies in the east, such as China, India, Russia, and Malaysia.

So how to do you make the decision to do this? There are several important factors that are mentioned by this article at Life-PR:

1) Companies should have a clear idea of what they want to outsource

2) They should choose the correct business process outsourcer

3) A company should be fully prepared for delegating several functions to the outsourcer

Deloitte and Cisco join forces to Build Better BPM Network

In a news release this morning, Deloitte and Cisco announced plans to work together in order to create a better business process. They are working towards the collaborate goal to add Cisco’s network platform with Deloitte’s system which combines processes and consulting capabilities.

The agreement wishes to:

Collaboration on service development, education, training, sales and delivery. Deloitte and Cisco will initially focus their efforts on the development and delivery of services aimed at risk, compliance and performance management challenges.

The future of Business Process Management: BPM 2.0

Processes and applications working together in concert across the organization and leveraging compliant best practices with the help of SOA and workflow is a big step forward, but there is more to the story of running a competitive business today.

In a new post at Jim Sinur’s blog, he discusses the important processes. Sinur believes that the five points below will transform the way we see BPM today for the better:

• Processes Need to be Indeterminate

The processes must find a way to be more flexible and dynamic.

• Processes Need to Support Best Practice Discovery

BPM processes must not be stuck in one rut, and the must be able to figure out how the process is working. It should observe the patterns and figure out how the process can be adapted to the program.

• Processes Need to be Widely Inclusive

The processes can’t be limited to inside the organization. The program must know how to be cross functional.

• Processes Need to be Intelligent

The program would be able to identify anything going on in the programs, and then notify the users of the changes

• Processes Need to be Goal Driven

The process management could have several different outcomes that need to happen. The programs would then identify these, and determine the best plan of action to take in order to get the different processes to the one spot.

The Ruler of BPM Software

In a recent post at the BPM In Action blog, Dennis Byron spends time pondering who is the market leader in the business process management software market. According to a study recently released by Forrester, it’s IBM.

Why? According to Byron, BPM is a value proposition, and users buy tools to aide them according to the value proposition they are given. IBM is still growing in leaps and bounds because of the people maintaining and updating the IBM BPM software they already have. Other software on its way up in the BPM world: Fujitsu, Remedy and Sterling.

Adobe plays surprising role in BPM

In a recent post by Bruce Silver at the BPMS Blog, he observes the low-key role that Adobe is playing in the BPM software space. We all know Adobe for other reasons, such as Flash and Acrobat PDF readers. But they’ve also been working in the BPM Space. Why have they gone largely unnoticed? They approach BPM in a different way, and view normal BPM processes as commodities. They instead focus on positioning with User Engagement and provide the users with an effective user interface.

So what had Adobe added for this go round? They focus on content management. And a few other things: this is an OEM version of Alfresco’s open source ECM offering, tightly integrated with the LiveCycle development environment. They also provide auto content classification, retention management, and team collaboration.

Value Innovation meets BPM

Value innovation is important to recognize in any company. Value innovation happens when you recognize your current business processes and improve them. In this article at BPM Enterprise, they show this via McDonald’s recent business emphasis in coffee. They saw that by improving what they had, they could become a real competitor with Starbucks, and have after improving the value of their own product.

It’s important to recognize what can be improved in your current business processes. Processes that can be changed are business rules engines, workflow solutions, online credit reports, and online databases that can allow for value innovations to be added to the business processes. The business world is constantly changing and evolving, and it’s important that business recognize this. What processes in your company can be innovated to better suit your needs?

SOA is a Top Priority in 2008

According to this recent article in BPM Enterprise a survey conducted by the Link Group shows that businesses around the world are slowly moving from the adoption phase of SOA strategy to the actual deployment of SOA services and technologies. 300 clients were surveyed, and 50% of that sampling group is currently deploying SOA, and another 27% are planning on it in the near future.

SOA helps businesses realign its business goals, reduces costs, and drives more efficiency within the organization. It’s good to see that CEOs are finally seeing the value that SOA brings to business process management.

The City of Norfolk adopts BPM

It’s important in any business to know the processes, and ensure that all paperwork gets done. The City of Norfolk, Virginia was faced with dwindeling budgets, tons of forms, and humans to take care of them. At this point, Hap Cluff, the IT director for the city of Norfolk, decided he needed to find a way to automate these processes. He turned to BPM to help solve his problems. Watch his interview below:

New Source for BPM

The Aris blog, one of my favorite sources for BPM, has launched a YouTube Channel, with the desire to keep their readers up to date on what is going on with BPM. You can check out the new channel here, and watch the first video below:

BPM: How it works

In a recent article at BPM Enterprise, Michael Beckley sat down to discuss what he believes BPM is and how it works. His definition:

"Business process management is a method and technology for automating and analyzing how people and systems interact. It's a new way to provide visibility into how people and technology need to be coordinated."

And what are the benefits/goals of BPM? You can see all of your data in your business processes. It’s also easier to coordinate data so the business is more effectively run when using this data. BPM puts users in charge of the data system, and they are no longer at the mercy of unorganized data. Not only does it help users analyze processes across departments, but it also the technology and resources that help power effective BPM.

Savvion’s New Business Process Solution could be a Hit

The latest article in eBizQ highlights Savvion’s latest launch of its human-centric process solution through its leading BPM platform. What makes this application special is that it will support process automation from beginning to start enabling collaboration between IT professions, business users, developers, architects, and the rest of employees within the organization.

Kevin Schmidt, director of SOA product management at Sun Microsystems mentions:

"We saw in Savvion BusinessManager a strong product that helps customers build human workflow into composite applications, along with its intuitive process modeling and simulation tools, giving business users a more active role in conceptualizing, defining and refining SOA-enabled processes and applications."

Designing an application around the way people actually work is a change for BPM solutions, one that will allow for greater flexibility and control of business processes in the enterprise.

BPM: Beneficial for operating across borders

Often times, many companies have issues keeping up with their paperwork when growing by double digits. When a process hasn’t been created which keeps papers, documents, and bills streamlining into a smooth process for all parts of a company. If this isn’t worked out, there can be many errors, and lost papers, along the paper trail to the financial office. An example of this was recently profiled in Express Computer.

Kuoni Travel Group saw double digit growing and realized that they had to come up with a better way to manage the financial means. They turned to Newgens, a BPM solution provider that allowed them to help them organize their system. Newgen worked with Price Waterhouse Cooper in order to implement this new BPM process across all divisions of Kuoni Travel Group. The main areas that were helped by this new BPM process were Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and many internal-approval processes.

Here were the benefits they saw coming from this BPM process:

• By centralizing and detaching the finance function, the solution helped Kuoni to focus on its core business.
• Process transparency and efficiency came about thanks to automated task assignment, tighter monitoring and control due to higher process visibility, and easy tracking by recording the transaction trail.
• Reduced paperwork, and therefore, easier storage, routing and archival of documents became possible.
• Better sharing and collaboration of data to facilitate quick and informed decision making has been enabled.
• Reduced manpower costs resulting due to automation of tasks.
• Freeing expensive office space, which is being used to provide employees recreational facilities and for other administrative functions.
• Better risk management and compliance capabilities.